Fletcher and wife Rachel said that between mid-May and early August last year, both of them were away from the house for weeks on end. A friend was asked to look out for important mail.

Asked by prosecutor Pamela Fee if there had been any such post, Fletcher responded: “No. Not to my knowledge.”

Asked how he would have responded to a notice of prosecution, he said: “The driver would obviously have accepted the points and the fine. None of us have got a lot of points. We would have no reason to avoid it.”